It’s the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, so enjoy this 1841 personal account from a New York merchant upon bumping in to the President of the United States out for a stroll. And consider how times have changed.
[I noticed] an elderly gentleman dressed in black, and not remarkably well dressed, with a mild benignant countenance, a military air, but stooping a little, bowing to one, shaking hands with another, and cracking a joke with a third. And this man was William Henry Harrison, the President of this great empire … unattended and unconscious of the dignity of his position—the man among men, the sun of the political firmament. People say what they will about the naked simplicity of republican institutions. It was a sublime spectacle.